Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. It was developed by NASA, in 1987, as a general-purpose UNIX™ scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular among programmers. Perl is a general-purpose programming language originally developed for text manipulation and now used for a wide range of tasks including system administration, web development, network programming, games, bioinformatics, and GUI development.

Perl borrows features from other programming languages including C, shell scripting (sh), AWK, and sed. The language provides powerful text processing facilities without the arbitrary data length limits of many contemporary Unix tools, facilitating easy manipulation of text files. It is also used for graphics programming, system administration, network programming, applications that require database access and CGI programming on the Web.

Perl is intended to be practical rather than elegant. Its major features include support for multiple programming paradigms (procedural, object-oriented, and functional styles), reference counting memory management (without a cycle-detecting garbage collector), built-in support for text processing, and a large collection of third-party modules.

The Perl courseware in this category include introductory as well as advanced courses providing the knowledge and skills required for novices as well as senior level programmers and systems administrators.